Barbra Streisand has slammed Donald Trump’s overhaul of the Kennedy Center as “galling and painful to witness.”
The EGOT-winning legend, 84, published a scathing statement calling out the president’s “unchecked ego” as the Kennedy Center crisis spirals. Trump, 80, has been insistent on slapping his name across the historic arts institution in Washington, D.C.
It serves as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and was renamed to honor him after his assassination in 1963. It officially opened to the public in 1971.
“The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has stood as one of America’s great cultural venues. Many of the world’s most accomplished actors, musicians, singers and dancers have graced its stages,” Streisand wrote on Thursday, adding, “Renaming the Cultural Center in JFK’s honor was a fitting choice, because he was a true champion of the arts.”
The Hollywood and Broadway star was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2008, calling it “an honor [that] represented something larger than a career recognition. It represented a belief in the importance of art to the life of a democracy.”
“That is why what is happening to the Kennedy Center is so galling and painful to witness,” she wrote. “When Donald Trump attempted to put his name alongside the late President Kennedy’s on the building’s entrance, the move was met with widespread opposition from artists and much of the public.”
Since Trump returned to office, the Kennedy Center has become one of his many fixations. The president not only made himself chairman of the arts center; he decided to rename the building to include his name.
In May, a federal judge blocked Trump from keeping his name on the building, either inside or outside. Construction workers quickly removed “Donald J. Trump” from its facade.
Trump has since thrown multiple tantrums, and his board voted to shut it down for two years. He also claimed the historic performing arts center can reopen only once his name is approved. The president has threatened to demolish the complex entirely if he does not get his way.
Streisand said “a humiliated Trump” is continuing his attempts to make his mark on the building, using his “Trump-aligned board” to do so.
“And now, a thoroughly defeated Trump has announced that the Kennedy Center is being closed for what the completely stacked board describes as a major renovation. Oddly, when Trump’s name was still on the building, there was no discussion of closing it!”
The singer invoked President Kennedy, saying he had envisioned the center as “a living place where artists could challenge, inspire, provoke, and bring Americans together through the transformative power of the arts.”
“He believed that when the creative impulse cannot flourish freely, a society loses its vitality,” she said.
She finished her statement by urging Americans to vote in the midterms in November.
